Episode 10: The Brief Is the Work (with Maury Postal)

My very first boss at my very first job was one of those people who took managing awkward 22-year-olds who think that they're geniuses but don't actually know anything incredibly seriously, which was a great thing for me.

Erin from Digitas, I still think so fondly of you.

And so much of how I've tried to manage and onboard people throughout my career started with what Erin really modeled for me.

One of the things Erin insisted I learn how to do was write a creative brief.

And at first, I did not understand why she cared so much.

I did not understand why I had to go through so many rounds of review when I was so smart and so brilliant that surely whatever I wrote the first time was good enough.

To me, it was a three-page Microsoft Word document.

You filled in some boxes.

You wrote a few things that sounded strategic.

And then presumably you moved on to the actual work.

But Erin didn't see it that way.

She saw it as really, truly the first part of the process and the most important part of the process.

And ultimately, she made sure I understood what every part of it was there to do and took every part of it as seriously as possible.

A creative brief is the document that tells a team what problem it's solving, who it needs to reach, and what the work needs to accomplish.

And when it's good, it gives everyone involved a really clear understanding and a shared direction before the work begins.

And so over time, that's really, I think, the larger lesson that Erin was teaching me, that the brief wasn't paperwork before the work.

It's the thing that made the work possible.

And that idea has stayed with me because it applies well beyond advertising.

Anytime a group of people is trying to make something happen, it helps to agree on what you're doing and why you're doing it and how you'll know whether it worked.

I'm Karen Doak, and this is OK, Actually, a show about what's really going on at work and what we can do about it.

And there is no one I would rather talk to about the strange and powerful and wildly misunderstood role of the brief than my friend and former colleague, Maury Postol.

Maury is a brilliant creative strategist and one of my favorite people I've met through work.

He might be the favorite, except that I met my husband through work, so he's automatically just starting at number two.

We met 16 years ago while launching the all-new Ford Explorer, and we've stayed close ever since, partly because we approach things very differently, but also because we share a deep appreciation for great work done well with actual purpose.

Today, Maury is EVP of Creative Strategy and Innovation Services for Grayling North America, and he helps brands translate all their creative ambition into work that can actually accomplish something.

So this conversation is about briefs, but it's also about something much larger.

It's about how people get aligned around a direction and what happens when they don't.

Welcome, Maury.

I am so glad to have you here today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I am so happy to be here, Sharon.

Thank you for having me.